Another Sky
by Chance
Summary: My answer to the Second and Third Seasons.


Disclaimer: I don't own them, don't claim them and make no money from them, so don't sue, although I do happily give my bills to whoever wants them 

Thanks to Miss Katrina for forcing me to break through writer's block 

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Lucas froze, stunned as the ship suddenly flared to life, lights sweeping from stem to stern, each one a different color and pulsing to its own beat. It looked as if a rainbow had exploded, sending its vibrant color spinning across the sky to touch everything with a seemingly other worldly glow. A blast of air came from the rising ship, stirring everything on the forest floor up in the air, until the small group from the ill fated seaQuest (the UEO's pride and joy, now nothing more then scrap metal on a distant planet's ocean floor) was surrounded by a blinding whirlwind of dirt and other debris. 

Lucas felt someone grab him from behind and a strong pair of arms pressed the teenager's face into a broad chest. Lucas unconsciously brought his arms up to hug the captain's waist tightly, pressing his face even harder into the older man's chest. The boy felt an incredible weight pressing down on him, pushing him closer and closer to the forest floor. Desperately trying to lock his knees against the force bearing down on him, Lucas felt himself slowly pressed down until he was crouching on the forest floor, the captain still holding him tightly. 

Vaguely other noises crept into Lucas' hearing: Dr. Smith's cry of shock as she found herself unable to withstand the pressure...Tim's almost silent voice as the communications officer prayed for himself and his friends...Brody's grunt as the large man landed hard against the uneven ground...Ortiz's muttered swearing in Spanish...Ford, (or was it Tony?) as the man tried to stand up against the horrible pressure as it relentlessly pushed against him...and finally, just before the pressure overcame the boy and Lucas finally gave into the seductive darkness pulling at him, the high pitched cry of a dolphin, totally out of place in the forest setting. Then everything was black. 

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Gradually, sounds started to filter in, causing the teenager to groan and wake up from his stupor. Slitting his eyes against the bright glare, Lucas slowly took a first look around him...and sat up abruptly in shock, feeling the captain's arms slide from where they were still holding him and land hard against the metal deck. The seaQuest's walls and screens in the bridge area met his amazed gaze. Nothing was broken, no smoke or flames met his eyes, and best of all, no alien crafts awaited them on any of the screens. It was...calm. 

Something else was wrong though…or was it right? Lucas slowly climbed to his feet, his body protesting the slow movement and letting him know that it was not pleased to be moving at all. Ignoring the small twinges and pushing the pain to the edge of his consciousness, Lucas continued to slowly make his way around the large area, checking on each of his friends as he went. All were alive and breathing and Lucas left them, figuring they would wake up on their own time. 

The bridge looked....exactly like it had all those years ago when he had first climbed on board her, a scared kid forced into the world of the military against his own will by a whim of his father's. The water in the moonpool splashed against it's sides in a slow movement, soothing the startled boy. There was no large bank of computer's where Tony, Henderson and himself had spent long hours navigating the seaQuest through her many ludicrous adventures, right up until Lucas had been forced upworld by the captain's orders...and the seaQuest had been hulled by alien technology. 

Lucas closed his eyes tightly against the remembered pain when he had realized all his friends were gone. The captain's words echoing loudly through his head and ripping a hole into his still fragile heart: "Don't let them take away what you believe..." Lucas blinked away the tears and forced the lump in his throat down. Now was not the time to lose it. Still, he couldn't stop himself from looking back to make sure all his friends were still there. 

His eyes slowly swept their was along the sprawled form of his friends taking them in one by one. There was the captain, his eyes closed loosely as he breathed the slow, even breaths of the deeply asleep. Ford was on his back, his arms at his sides, looking every inch the military man he was even in his sleep and Lucas had to bite back a smile at the sight. He forced himself to continue on, cataloging all of his friends in his photographic memory just in case this was all a dream and he was going to find himself back on the life raft, floating aimlessly in an endless sea of blue. 

There was Tim and, not surprisingly, Ortiz was nearby, the two best friends watching out for each other even in sleep. Then there was...Katie?...and Ben sprawled on his side nearby. What the?! What were they doing there? And why was Crocker nearby them, his mouth emitting loud snores? 

Where were Brody…Tony…Dagwood...Wendy...Henderson? Lucas blinked his wide blue eyes in confusion, shaking his head trying to clear the fog from his brain. What was going on? He tried to search back into his mind for a vision of something from the last several days, but all he could get was a brief flash of blue and a remembered emotional pain so intense that even now it made his heart hurt to feel it. 

Someone stirred behind him and he whirled around, his heart doing its best to beat its way out of his chest. The boy watched as first one, and then the rest of his friends slowly blinked their eyes and awoke, each one looking around with the confusion Lucas knew they were feeling blatantly displayed on their faces. 

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Nathan Bridger climbed slowly to his feet wincing at the pull on his ribs. The last thing he remembered was...what? His mind was almost a complete blank. Finally reaching a standing position the man took a look around, automatically cataloging the state of his crew. Everyone looked shaken up, but seemed to be operating fairly well under the circumstances. The older man went to stand by Lucas, as the boy looked up to meet his eyes with confusion. 

"What happened, sir?" Lucas asked as Nathan finally reached where the boy was standing by the moonpool. Nathan shrugged his shoulders and just looked closer at the boy, checking him more closely than he had the others. Aside from the obvious confusion shining from the bright blue eyes, nothing seemed to be wrong with him. Then why did Nathan have the almost overwhelming urge to grab the boy to him and hold him tightly, and make sure he was still there? He fought the urge, not wanting to scare the boy unnecessarily and settled for draping his arm across Lucas' shoulders and pulling the teenager closer to him. 

"I don't know Lucas, but I think its time to contact UEO command and see what happened," Nathan said as he steered his young charge towards O'Neill's communications station. He had started "dialing" them up when he felt a movement at his elbow. Looking up, Nathan watched as O'Neill slid into position, clearly as mystified as the rest of them but determined to do his duty. Nathan nodded and offered a smile at the younger man, before turning his head and observed the rest of his crew taking up their positions. 

Ford and Katie seemed to be lost in a deep discussion as the two donned their headsets and set about checking systems throughout the boat. Crocker contacted his security team and ordered his men to case the boat and check for anything wrong. Ben sat at a console, carefully going through his record of supplies and muttering something under his breath, while Kristin stood behind him and "encouraged" him to check her medical supplies first. Nathan smiled ruefully at the site and let his gaze continue around the bridge stopping on Ortiz. 

Something seemed to be off about the young man, but Nathan couldn't quite place it as he watched the younger man check on the WSKRs and other sensor equipment. It almost seemed as if his looks had changed, but that wasn't possible was it? The Sensor Chief looked the same as he always had, from the tips of his regulation sneakers to the top of his short haired head. Nathan shook his head and continued on, an image of Ortiz with longer hair coming to his mind for some inexplicable reason. It was just another confusing aspect to an already very confusing day. 

"I have Secretary-General Noyce sir, " O'Neill said, breaking into Nathan's thoughts. 

"On screen," he said, making his way to the center of the bridge, pulling Lucas along with him. Nathan didn't want to let Lucas out of his sight and the boy wasn't complaining. Instead Lucas had brought his hand around to grasp at the back of Nathan's uniform, the black fabric clenched tightly in a whitened fist. Nathan squeezed the boy reassuringly and smiled at him, before turning his attention to the main screen. 

Noyce's surprised face met Nathan's as he gazed at his old friend. 

"Nathan! Where have you been? We've been trying to establish contact ever since World Power had to shut down," Noyce practically shouted. Nathan blinked stupidly and looked at his crew, meeting equally confused glances. 

"World Power had to shut down? Why?" Nathan asked, completely, lost in a seemingly meaningless conversation. Noyce sighed exasperatedly. 

"They turned it on and discovered a major glitch in the design structure. Gone unchecked it could have had significantly dire consequences," Noyce explained impatiently. "Now what has been happening there?" Nathan shook his head. 

"I don't know Bill," he said confused. "The last thing I remember is rescuing those children from the Amazonian Confederation. The next thing I knew, we were waking up on the bridge." His brown eyes squinted as he realized what he had just said and what it meant. "Wait, I thought World Power wasn't scheduled for activation for another few weeks yet," Nathan said. He felt the teenager next to him tense up at the mention of his father's all encompassing project. The project he had forsaken his own son for. Nathan just held him tightly, offering whatever comfort he could. However, there was little that could be done for a boy who knew that work had been chosen over him almost every time. Even ending up with the same boy being sent to live on a military sub. Not a place for a child by any means, yet the only place that he had ever really belonged. Nathan was sad for the teenager, but he thanked heaven everyday that Lucas was in his life. He wouldn't give up knowing the amazing young man for anything. 

"Nathan," Noyce began worriedly," you rescued those children almost a month ago. Do you mean to say you can't remember _anything_ that happened between now and then. That none of you can?" Noyce watched in amazement as first Nathan and then the rest of the crew shook their heads, showing that they didn't remember anything either. 

"Okay then. I want you to head into port. Something must have happened and we need to get to the bottom of it, " Noyce ordered. Nathan nodded at the helmsmen, who quickly set course and fed the coordinates to the computer. seaQuest was underway before Nathan had time to look back at Noyce. 

"Our ETA should be in about three hours," Nathan told Noyce, checking his computer readout. Noyce nodded and wished them a safe journey before cutting the connection. He had things to arrange before the seaQuest returned to dock. 

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Lucas looked at the captain as the older man squeezed his shoulders reassuringly. 

"Don't worry Lucas, everything will be fine," he said confidently. Lucas had been around the man too long to fall completely for his "reassure the crew" act, but he appreciated the fact that the captain felt the need to try. It was nice to know that people cared for him. He felt himself led to a chair and sat down in it almost before he realized what was happening. 

"I want you to stay here while I go check and see how everyone else is doing, all right?" Lucas nodded and ducked as the older man ruffled his hair before moving on to check on Kristin and Ben. 

Glancing around, Lucas took in the sights of his home, his only real home, and bit back a smile that threatened to spill across his face. Now was _not_ the time, but he couldn't help but feel that a wrong had been righted for some odd reason. Things tickled at the edge of his mind, and faces he couldn't connect names to flashed before his eyes. Try though he might, not one of these images solidified into anything he could remember, but he didn't feel as if anything seriously wrong had occurred, just that things had been put back to rights. 

Shaking his head in wonder, Lucas' gaze finally fell upon the moonpool where Darwin floated, the dolphin seemingly smiling at him. Lucas stared at his friend, knowing somehow that Darwin was the key to what had happened, yet he also knew that in the end it didn't matter. 

"Something's," he said under his breath as he stood to go to the dolphin, "are better left unknown." 

The seaQuest sped through the water, making way for home as its occupants tried to unlock the mystery of their memory loss. A signal, inaccessible to human hearing, made its way through the endless blue and up into the deep black of space. Two words repeated over and over in the high trill of dolphin-speak. 

"Thank you." 

The end 

And that would be my answer to the second and third season. :P 

E-Mail addy: [chance1562@aol.com][1]

   [1]: mailto:chance1562@aol.com



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